Have some scientists been too fanatical?

Yeah, except that they don't do that, do they? They do things like ... write books. Express their opinions. Fanatical stuff like that.The fact is that religious people just have a lower bar for when an atheist should be considered a "fanatic" than they do for their fellow-religious. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Then you're probably not a fanatic.The point of the picture, which I think you've missed, is that all an atheist needs to do to get labeled as an extremist or a fanatic is do something like saying: "There is no God". It's a very low bar. For a religious person to get labelled an extremist, they have to do something shocking and/or violent --- for an atheist, expressing the opinion that atheists are right is apparently sufficient.So people like Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens and Dennett get called "extremists". Why? 'Cos they wrote books, which no-one is obliged to read, suggesting in usually very moderate not to say scholarly language that religion is a bad idea and atheism is a better one.Now if conversely a Christian scholar or apologist or philosopher writes a book saying that Christianity is better than atheism, no-one --- neither you nor I --- labels him an extremist on that account.Even if it's someone Christians disagree with, but is religious, he gets a pass. I suppose there must have been a zillion Muslims who've said that Islam is better than Christianity, but I've never seen a Christian denounce such people as "fanatics" or "extremists". To be an extremist, a Muslim has to blow something up. All an atheist has to do to be an extremist is say that he's right.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

But some people's feelings are easily hurt. Where do you draw the line?I guess we could agree that personal civility is a good thing in debates between the religious and the non-religious, but what about statements which various people believe to be statements of fact? Things like: "Atheists will burn in Hell"; or "The deity portrayed in the Old Testament is a wicked monster"; or "Joseph Smith was a fraud" (something we probably both believe unless by some mischance you're a Mormon). Such statements might upset some people (although speaking as an atheist what upsets me about people who tell me that atheists will go to Hell is not that they say it or that they believe it but that many of them seem to enjoy the idea).Well, such statements might hurt people's feelings, but if the speaker believes what he's saying is true, then should he not say it? If, for example, it hurts the feelings of a Mormon for someone to write an accurate biography of Joseph Smith, or of a Scientologist for someone to write an accurate biography of L. Ron Hubbard, should the facts be suppressed for the benefit of Mormons or Scientologists?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

It is indeed incredibly, fatuously, footlingly wrong, but is it therefore fanatical? When I read a creationist apologist talking nonsense about (to take a parallel example) the second law of thermodynamics, I don't necessarily condemn him as a fanatic, I just think he has a poor grasp of thermodynamics.---Indeed, the statement is so wrong that I'm not sure Provine said it, or all of it. I have seen some strange things happen to quotations, and it is possible that somehow a gloss has become part of the text.It's one thing for a man who is after all a non-scientist to draw false conclusions from Darwinism --- somewhere in the world this is happening once every second. But it is slightly incredible that a historian should have asserted that Darwin drew the same conclusions. I, a non-historian, knew enough of the history of Darwin's opinions to look up on google and find within ten seconds Darwin's letter to John Fordyce (who was, if memory serves, an atheist): And to Asa Gray (the biologist mentioned in the previous letter, a devout Christian) he wrote: So if Provine really wrote the words "that Charles Darwin understood perfectly", then this argues a singular degree of incompetence at his chosen profession.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I'd like to associate myself with Pressie.You write: But you see, this is not one of those issues about which well-informed reasonable people can debate any more. When I read what a creationist has to say, then I guess the most civil thing for me to say is: "You make many good and interesting points, sir, and your arguments should certainly be taught in science classes so that children can make up their own minds." Only I want to say something which is less civil but which is actually true: "Sir, you have learned from the internet to recite many falsehoods which are utterly ridiculous to anyone who knows anything about the subjects you're talking about. Science teachers should not be required to parrot your falsehoods in class, because it is wrong to tell lies to children."You see, the essential problem with creationist arguments is that creationists talk about things that they don't know anything about. If you don't believe me, I can illustrate this at length. But such is the case.And so from my position of actual knowledge I cannot do the polite thing and treat this as if it was a reasonable controversy between equals. It isn't. It's a debate between people who know things about science and people who don't. It would be more polite for me to pretend that it isn't, but it is much more accurate for me to say that pretty much every creationist argument is produced by someone who is too lazy to study the subject he's talking about and too arrogant to think that he should.There is no civil way to say this about someone, any more than there's a civil way to say that someone's a thief. One can politely ignore the fact that he steals, or one can impolitely point it out. In such cases, how does one tell the truth and spare the feelings of the thief? One has to choose. And I am in the position of someone who is an eyewitness to the theft.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, talk me through this. I've seen plenty of Christian apologists say that anyone who does not believe in God does not think logically. Also that I deserve to suffer perpetual torment in hell. And some of them have quoted the Bible saying: "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God".Let me quote the whole passage. What the Bible says, and what Bible-believing Christians must all believe, is this:"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good."That's what the Bible says about me. It says that I'm a fool, that I am corrupt, that I have done abominable works. I have never said anything so hateful about someone just because they're a Christian. I like Christians, I just think that they're wrong about some things.And this is what I'm talking about. If I thought every Christian was a "fool", which I don't, then I would be an "extremist" atheist, I'd be a "fanatic". If, on the other hand, a Christian believes that I'm a fool, that I'm corrupt, that I never do anything good, and that I do abominable works, then he isn't an extremist. He's just a Bible-believing Christian.I do not say to a Christian that he is a fool, that he is corrupt, that he never does anything good, and that he does abominable works. But because I say that he might well be wrong about the existence of God, then I'm the extremist.

Well, you didn't do a bad job. You even quoted Psalms 14:1. If I ever want someone to stand in for me, you will be my first choice.

Well, you could do geology like that, but you could make no advances in geology by doing that. Someone who didn't believe in electricity could still follow a set of instructions and build a radio. He wouldn't understand why it worked, but he could still build it and it would work. On the other hand, the electricity-denier could never figure out how to build a better radio. And the fact that he could build one at all would depend crucially on the existence of people who do believe in electricity.The same with "flood geologists". I suppose they could make practical use of the fact that real geologists are always right, and then they could say: "oh, but real geologists are actually always wrong, and the real explanation for all the facts of geology is MAGIC WATER!" But they can never advance the science of geology, they can just use it for all practical purposes while simultaneously denouncing it as the work of the devil. To advance the science, they'd have to understand the principles by which it works.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yes, that is absolutely what science tells us. But it is not what the theory of evolution tells us, because the theory of evolution is about something else.Creationists seem to call every scientific fact that upsets them "the theory of evolution". But the theory of evolution is quite a specific thing. It's like if an environmental extremist called every thing that upset him a "car". Whether he is right or wrong to be upset, some of the things that upsets him are not cars. If he points to a nuclear power station and says: "That is an evil pollution of Mother Earth!", then we might debate whether he's right or wrong. But if he points to a nuclear power station and says: "That is a car!" then he's just plain wrong.

Well, these are weasel words. We all agree that life started from non-life. The Book of Genesis says that God made man out of clay, a non-living aluminosilicate mineral. The question that divides us is whether the origin of life occurred as a result of chemical processes or by God doing magic. But we both agree that life had an origin, we just disagree about whether it was caused by magic.And so of course a belief in common ancestry does not imply that the common ancestor arose in a non-magical way. Why would it? Common sense may tell us this, but if we merely believe in common ancestry then it doesn't matter at all from the point of view of that theory whether the common ancestor was produced by real processes or magicked into existence by God.

Well, no it doesn't. To say that there was a common ancestor implies that life started. As to how, there is no particular implication --- the first organism might as well have been sneezed out by the Great Green Arkleseizure. The theory of evolution as such is silent on this issue, just like the theory of gravity doesn't tell us the origin of matter.